Pasadena ready to go for Bledsoe

PASADENA >> The Pasadena High School football team still has one more week before opening the 2013 season. The Bulldogs are rarin’ to go.

“We’re excited to get going,” senior lineman Alejandro Figueroa said. “The coaching staff has been great. They have worked with us really hard. We expect a lot to happen this season.”

Pasadena opens the season Sept. 6 at nearby La Salle.

Doug Bledsoe became the Bulldogs’ coach last spring, replacing Randy Horton. The Bulldogs went 1-9 last season, even scoring a surprising 37-8 loss to perennial cellar dweller Hoover last season.

“What happened last season happened last season,” Bledsoe said. “We’re going in with a new mindset and going in with a new set of staff. We did good things over at North Hollywood (last year) and we’re going to do big things here. What they want from the coaching staff is consistency.”

The Bulldogs will definitely be young. Figueroa is only one of a handful of seniors on the team.

“Coach has been working hard with us and not having us stand around,” Figueroa said. “We have a great attitude.”

Sophomore Tyrek Adams appears set to be the starting quarterback. He played on the JV team last year.

“It has not been that difficult,” he said of the physicality between the two levels. “I’ve had to learn a lot.”

Adams cemented his starting position through the summer passing leagues and in last Friday’s scrimmage against Crespi.

“We got exactly out of him what we wanted in the scrimmage,” Bledsoe said. “One of the great things he saw up close was a superior high school football team. We’d rather see him against a team like them to prepare him for the season.”

And that went for the entire team, too.

“We looked OK,” he said of the scrimmage. “We took punches from Crespi and we survived.

“The kids are working really hard and anxious to prove themselves. We’re really young and the young guys are going to have to be leaders really quickly. It’s just been a matter of them buying in. Once we start winning, we’ll be OK. It’s a matter of believing.”

The Lancers also play highly regarded Cathedral and then Salesian before opening league play against Crescenta Valley.